Douglas Crockfort analyzes JavaScript and describes what he feels are the good parts and the inevitable bad parts.
It is a well structured, almost scientific read. Which could have been rather boring, wouldn’t it be for his way of writing. I really like this book for his different approach to JavaScript. It helped me to understand some weird stuff I had always taken as inevitable but never understood because I usually look for logical connections and structures and get confused if, all of a sudden, that doesn’t apply anymore.
Rather short read for a book about a programming language but don’t let this trick you! It is packed with information and I probably will have to re-read several passages.
In my opinion, it does anticipate a solid programming background. Therefore I would not feel comfortable to give it to an absolute beginner of JavaScript.
You might like to check out JavaScript – The Definitive Guide as well.